Will Skyrim run on your PC? Well yes, actually, there’s a fairly good chance it will. Bethesda have revealed the specs necessary to make it run at all, or make it run all fast, and you can see them below.

The surprisingly low minimum specs, as spotted by VG247, are as follows:

Actually, they upgraded their engine quite a lot., for example Oblivion could use only 1 core/cpu, and Skyrim apparently can use 4 cores at the same time. If I’m not wrong, the entire engine was remade, and the fact that it uses “only” DirectX 9 could have proven an excellent choice for the developers.

I mean, by using the existing technology they had to spend less time and money on DirectX 10/11, which have both proven to be mostly useless, and focus their energy into creating a truly innovative (not “Hey I use DirectX 11, with tessellation and stuff”) and interesting game.
Moreover, remember what happened with Oblivion. It had a beautiful graphics (and with mods it still has), and an advanced (compared to Morrowind) physics and animation engine, but the result was – most of those who played Morrowind were disappointed with Oblivion. Just compare the architectural variety of Morrowind on one side, and Oblivion on the other and you will see the point. The difference in the overall setting is even greater (the story of the main quest especially).

To conclude: for me it’s not a disappointment if a developer doesn’t use the latest technology; the disappointment is when developers can’t make something good/interesting/innovative no mater what technology they have on their disposal.

Most people who bitched about Oblivion done so solely because the leveling system was stupid.

You had to be careful with how you created your character, because if you had your point’s invested wrong the game would see you as a level 20 character. But you might only have had the stats of a level 10 because you were leveling the non combat stuff

The recommended specs are for the “high” setting, so “ultra” may or may not require more power. (edit: eh, too slow )

I also wonder what resolution these specs are for? When I build my new PC I made the conscious decision to buy a comparatively tiny screen (1360×768), thus hopefully keeping my FPS a lot higher a lot longer than if I I went with 1920*1080.

I think that resolution might be too small, unless you are trying to save a lot of money on a cheaper card (what is wrong with you?). I ran the BF3 beta on high on 1600×900 on my gts450 and it ran perfectly well, though I would recommend a more powerful card if you decide to go 1600×900.

I think I got around 40 hours out of Oblivion (vanilla – before mods) and what was the install size? 5GB? Less maybe. I know we’re going to hear about players making it through Skyrim in 45 seconds, but I think you’ll be able to get a lot more out of it if you want to.

Well, it already looks better just in screenshots alone, and my guess is we’ll get some high res textures in short order either from modders or an unofficial patch of some kind from Bethesda. Plus, the faces are already at least 1.4 million times better. Give or take.

Fair enough.. strangely, I didn’t really enjoy Oblivion much, but ended up putting a lot of good hours into Fallout 3 + New Vegas, go figure. I hope for the same though, that Skyrim will be above and beyond both of these games.

They are also games really disliked by many. Oblivion had a huge PR campaign heading up to release, that touted many new features; many of which it did not deliver on. It had loads of bugs (standard for Bethesda), it featured a levelling system that allowed you to finish the game easilly at very low levels, if you stayted there, and conversely had bandits equipped like kings if you were high level. Just loads of incosistancies.

While beautiful to wander around in, the main story had you doing the same damn thing over and over again. Voice acting in the game left lots to be desired. Other quests lines in the game varied from quite good to pedestrian.

The province, while supposed to be some sort of Imperial Roman analog, instead look like a bad, generic D&D campaign. After the exotic otherness of Morrowind, it was a let down.

Personally, Oblivion was the last title of Bethesda’s that I have bought. I certainly don’t feel the need to pay full price to them for a game that essentially has to be fixed or finished by modders.

Maybe they’ve learned their lesson in Skyrim: Fallout 3 was better, though lowered expectations may have helped that. Still, I no longer listen to their pre-release claims. Only seriously good reccomendations would get me to consider Skyrim. And then only after the price goes down.

This is gaming. For every title, no matter how near-perfect it may be, there are always people online who will rage and declare it “crap”.

To say that two of the most highly acclaimed titles of the decade aren’t even worth trying is just typical gamer hyperbole.

Though I find the attitude kinda odd that someone will put down modding on a PC gaming site. Seeing as the ability to mod those two games so freely and completely is perhaps one of the greatest testaments to the awesomeness of being a PC gamer. Console gamers are stuck with whatever they get, we on the other hand can turn Oblivion into whatever ideal gaming experience we want with the plethora of mods out there, or edit the game ourselves with a bit of research.

I’m looking forwards to this, and I’ve not played a brand new game for ages. So I guess this is my chance to enjoy all those new-release teething problems reserved exclusively by AMD’s graphics drivers. Hurrah! It’ll make a change from the normal, everyday problems with AMD’s graphics drivers.

I really want to buy a 560Ti, because I think my 9800GTX+ is the limiting factor in my gaming right now, but it won’t fit in the case. Which means I’d have to buy a new case, CPU, etc. and put off buying a new GPU. Hmm…

What I don’t get is I pretty much have the Minimum specs yet have been able to play every game ever, including the Battlefield 3 Beta perfectly well, in fact I only had to reduce the recommended ‘medium’ settings to ‘low’ on Caspian Border, guess it was too big to handle. It ran Crysis 2 on Ultra before the DX 11 patch. My rig:

Dual Core 3 Ghz (AMD Athlon)
2 Gb RAM
GTS 250 (1gb version)

As long as devs are making games for X360 and PS3 it’ll run everything just fine thanks. (Still massively want a new PC though. BF3 on Ultra please!)

Yes, my PC is similar, except I have E8400 CPU 3Ghz and 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, GTS250 512MB. I still run most new games pretty much maxed out at great performance. All these people who can’t wait to recommend you i7’s and 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM and whatever awesome new card doubled in SLI seem pretty damn obnoxious to me.

@Nallen I’ve yet to read a comment of yours that hasn’t been obnoxious or ignorant, this being no exception. I have similar specs to that and I can certainly run games like the Battlefield 3 beta, Witcher 2, etc on the highest or close to highest settings with more than 25 FPS.

Maybe not the best place to ask, but if anyone would give me some professional opinion on this, i’d be really happy: I have a core2duo 2.8ghz and an old 9600gt (512 mb), with 4 GB ram, and as it seems, pretty much below the system requirements .

Do you think i can upgrade just the graphics card to make my computer able to play skyrim/bf3/guild wars2, and push the retirement a few more months away, or i have to build a new comp altogether? And if a graphics card only would help me, what do you recommend?

Do you happen to have your motherboard information? Generally, the mother board dictates how far a computer is able to upgrade, depending on socket types (cpu) memory allowance/speed (ram) and can, in some cases, impact which video cards you’ll be able to use.

Hey, my advice would be to save some money and build a new computer when you can, rather than spend money on upgrading. You wouldn’t be able to get much more juice out of a system built on that board. It only supports DDR2 RAM up to 4 GB, whereas new boards support DDR3 and a much greater amount of RAM. On top of that, even if you upgrade a CPU, you’ll be upgrading to something below the curve, which is something you don’t want to do.

In short, it looks like it’s time to build a new machine. There is some great advice on the Tech forums here, and I’m pretty sure there was a recent news post here on RPS where the guys went over building a new computer, and the kinds of things to look for and where to shop.

If you´re tight on cash just go for a new graphics card! Since the game is XBOX 360 based (partially atleast) it wont require that much CPU or fast RAM.
Buy a shiny new grahpics card around the 100 Euro mark, and save it for when you get motherboard and cpu upgraded.
The thing to think about when buying graphics cards is definetly “bang-for-the-buck”, and i was tipped by ex-ATI engineer Eskild (programmer of the Love game) that buying a bit cheaper, but more often, is quite a good idea.
Graphics cards are usually incredibly expensive around launch, because “early adopters” who have money and ego invested in being the l33test will pay outrageous prices to camoflage their lack of FPS skill – I´d not buy a gcard for over 100 Euros!
The charts on tomshardware.com seems to support this theory if you look at the price drops.

Edit: i got an ATI 5750, and a Phenom 2 X4 and most recent games run well in 1650×1000 around high settings (30-40 FPS) , mainly coz of the graphics card.
Only games that have improved with my new CPU are Arma 2 and Supreme Commander, and my internet browsing experience is the same roughly as it was with my old dual-core

I’ve got the same problem, and I’d say upgrade the GPU to a 560Ti or so. If you do that, you can later upgrade the motherboard/cpu/RAM, which typically have to be done together, it seems. If you do that, you should be able to play games for quite a while, then you can add another of your GPUs in SLI/Xfire and stay on top of things for a while longer. I’d be doing the same if my case weren’t so small.

After reviewing the hardware and the game’s requirements, I can only say that you’re probably out of luck. Your rig is woefully under-powered. I can only hope you didn’t spend too much on it. I’d recommend upgrading to a Pentium and replacing your “MSI”s with Betamax.

Kitchen implements? Ha! I’m planing on wedging a graphics card in my ass and then holding the game disk in my mouth and running it on MY IMAGINATION. I’m highly confident I will at least see some kind of image. It will have a resolution of some kind and I will be able to fix all the release bugs with the power of hope.

Hullo.
My goal of purchasing a new gaming desktop this autumn has been postponed until 2012. While I do have a 360 just in case I also have a spiffy laptop, courtesy of my employers. It’s a Thinkpad W510, a stout enough beast but designed primarily for design and CAD work rather than gaming. It has an i7 quad @ 1.6 GHz, 8 Gigs o’ RAM and a Quadro FX 880M GPU.
So, while I’m pretty sure it can run Skyrim, the fact that the GPU isn’t designed for gaming worries me that it won’t run terribly well in some respects where fast processing is required.
I’d like to do a performance test or two before I commit to one platform or another for Skyrim. What game demos (or performance apps) would the RPS community recommend I download and play to test the beefiness of my GPU? I have Oblivion on DVD, but FO3 and New Vegas were both played on console.
I like my X-Box and won’t be upset if I have to play Skyrim on console, but my platform of choice remains the PC. Worst case scenario: I play Skyrim on the 360 now, and when I do get a good gaming rig I’ll buy it again, hopefully when DLCs and a ton of mods are available.

Hmm, first post didn’t stick. Lemme try again…
My goal of purchasing a new gaming desktop this autumn has been postponed until 2012. While I do have a 360 (just in case) I also have a spiffy laptop, courtesy of my employers. It’s a Thinkpad W510, a stout enough beast but designed primarily for design and CAD work rather than gaming. It has an i7 quad @ 1.6 GHz, 8 Gigs o’ RAM and a Quadro FX 880M GPU.
So, while I’m pretty sure it can run Skyrim, the fact that the GPU isn’t designed for gaming worries me that it won’t run terribly well in some respects where fast processing is required.
I’d like to do a performance test or two before I commit to one platform or another for Skyrim. What game demos (or performance apps) would the RPS community recommend I download and play to test the beefiness of my GPU?

Arma 2- think theres a demo maybe, but atleast theres the free to play version with lowered texture res.
Thing is tho, the game can be scaled to make my Phenom II x4 with an ATI 5750 grind to a halt if i maxx everything.
10 KM view range, anyone?

Lovely, I meet/exceed the recommended requirements in everything but processor power. Curse you, dual-core CPU. Still, I assume it’ll be deliciously playable (and my graphics card usually makes up for the absence of extra GHz, I have discovered).

It should always state the resolution and FPS the specs are for. Simple as 1080p@60fps or 720p@30fps before the other stuff.

Currently the recommended and minimum specs are next to useless. Games tend to have minimum requirements for unplayable game at 15FPS and even the recommended is something you wouldn’t actually recommend to get the game running smoothly. Then there’s exceptions where recommended means running the game 60+ FPS constantly at 1080p.

They should say something like for example (instead of vagueness… because ofc foolish uneducated pc users have their computer stuffed with background processes and random crap running anyway so these settings will be way off standardised performance)

Alright guys, dont be nervous about the length and content of the game. They declared there are more weapons and armor in Skyrim than Oblivion, and they had their speed-run competition. It took them 2 and a half hours to beat Skyrim(developers know the quest backwards) and a few years ago it took them a hour and 15 mins to beat fallout 3 and Oblivion. So basically take the time it took you to beat fallout 3 OR Oblivion and multiply it by two. Thats how long Skyrim is going to keep its “fresh” feeling lol. Either way my social life is gone and the girlfriend is being ignored friday through sunday! SKYRIM.

You can play Skyrim fine with a toaster or a 360… or you can tweak the graphics like a boss in the config file and see HD textures, physical objects, and characters miles away in game with modded tesselated textures 4x the quality of vanilla textures up close and no jaggies anywhere to be found. Oblivion and Morrowind can be made to look like 20x better than when they were released through graphics tweaking.